Despite the traditional marketing paradigm being shattered into pieces, we are all guilty of reverting to type. To push and shove our messages at people that may or may not be interested in our product.
One of the key tenets of traditional marketing was push out our message, to create the biggest noise, and to hope, that something sticks.

The problem is that the traditional paradigm was established in the 1950's. And back then things were different. We had fewer interruptions, much more time and we lived a gentler existence, at least in terms of marketing. Fast forward to 2013 and we don’t live in a nice, quiet and peaceful world any longer. We have increasing interruptions, distractions and pressures on our time. We ‘White out’ in that we end up in danger of not hearing or seeing anything at all, as all the mediocre messages blur into one, and differentiation from one to another is nigh on impossible.

So when Coke took the lead with their ‘kind of’ personalised campaign, everyone took notice. They deployed VDP and printed via HP’s awesome Indigo technology,and it created a very big stir. Not just from the print industry who could finally see that digital print technology was being used within the labelling and packaging sector in a big way, but from Coke's customers, consumers, us.

It is almost irrelevant that the print process took much longer, or that it will not replace the traditional analogue method of mass production, because, like effective marketing should do, it created a fury of press and social media coverage. I personally saw pictures through my Facebook stream of friends with their cokes, with theirs or their children’s name on it from across Europe.

It worked. It drew attention to Coke. And well done to them.

Inspired by this, we got to work with our own personalisation campaign at InPrint to promote the show to exhibitors. And this, we are pleased to report has had great impact. The show is already 80% sold and we are delighted that the campaign managed to attract more exhibitors and it has only reached people this week.

It takes more time, more investment, more thinking and a willingness to try something different, to really get noticed these days. Those willing to take the risks will reap the rewards.

And we are happy to report that VDP works. And although our marketing effort might not match Coke’s - it is proof that the principle is very much the same.